Understanding Subsistence and Culture: The Batek of Malaysia - Essay Example

? Understanding Subsistence and Culture: The Batek of Malaysia and Number Submitted Subsistence is an important aspect of culture; it defines the way societies lived and allows them to continuously live in terms available resources that the society can procure. Subsistence allowed societies to survive in terms of food and necessities and was able to expand cultures among different societies. Subsistence palsy an important role in the formulation of culture such an example is the aboriginal society of the Batek of Malaysia that will be discussed among the context of this paper. Observed clearly how the primary mode subsistence of these people made them ably adapt and formulate a culture of their own and survived changes over the years. It has been recognized that mode of subsistence has a major impact on values, beliefs, and virtually all social structures, including the family, religion, the political and economic orders of every culture. Key words: subsistence, society, culture, Batek of Malaysia Understanding Subsistence and Culture: The Batek of Malaysia The world’s modern society is consisting of thousands of human culture that have emerged from the most primitive type to its modern form after polishing over the process of evolution. Same as with man who is believed to have evolved to adapt to the concept of the ever changing environment, culture as the totality of what man does go along with it. These diverse societies at present can be classified into basic types depending upon the primary mode of subsistence strategies that have been used to exploit the natural environment for their existence. Subsistence is a word mainly that has been exploited since the beginning of man’s existence and over the years even until today. It is an important word used to define activities that man has been doing all along for survival mainly described as the main source from which food and other commodities necessary to exist are obtained such as the forests, seas and prairies where most foods are freely taken from. Human societies everywhere have developed a cultural infrastructure that is compatible with the natural resources available to their society and within the limitations of their various habitats. Each mode of subsistence involves resources required to effectively capture and utilize to best suit a society’s needs (Haviland et al., 2010, p. 165) Different societies ever since have used different subsistence strategies depending on the type of environment they have to exploit in order for the society to survive in terms of food, shelter, security and social needs as well. For example, societies living within an area with rich forests live by hunting and gathering while societies living along the coastal regions live mainly on the produce of the sea. Societies that have found more productive strategies have tended to grow larger and more complex and have evolved faster and further. These complex societies often enjoy their success at the expense of societies using more primitive technologies— i.e. hunting gathering societies versus industrialized societies wherein people of the latter enjoys the luxury of abundant food available in the market compared to the food that still has to be gathered raw amongst the forest. It has been recognized that mode of subsistence has a major impact on values, beliefs, and virtually all social structures, including the family, religion, the political and economic orders of every culture. How subsistence directly affects each aspects of a society has long been proven from various researches. In the context of this paper the author would like to present the subsistence and its effect in the culture of the Betak society of Malaysia in terms of their belief and values, social organization and economic organization. The Batek: Hunter- Gatherer indigenous ethnic minority of Malaysia The Batek are one of the twenty indigenous ethnic minorities of Peninsular Malaysia, the Orang Asli inhabiting the watershed of the Lebir River and the lowland forests in the states of states of Kelantan, Pahang and Terengganu in Peninsular Malaysia. The Semang are distinguishable from the other populations of the Malay Peninsula due to their distinct physical features, which include dark skin, curly hair and broad, flat noses. The language of the Batek De' is in the Mon Khmer family. The total population is not determined due to some unreliability in the government census but is not likely to exceed nine hundred which of most are nomadic foragers and traders of forest produce. The nomadic Batek had access to approximately 1870 square kilometers of rain forest, giving them a population density of about one person per 9.3 square kilometer (Endicott Kirk, 1988; Tuck-Po, 2002, p. 6). One of the most important questions in the social sciences was posted by Endicott (2005, p. 79) to whether what are the conditions that promote or inhibit the rise of economic, social and political inequalities citing that one way to approach this question is to examine how egalitarian societies deal with cultural features and circumstance that could lead to the development of inequalities. The Batek is one of the many egalitarian foraging societies which mean that there is a minimal difference among the people of its society in terms of wealth, power and prestige. They have leveling mechanism which by design impedes the development of differences in many aspects of their culture that is believed by the author of this essay to be affected greatly by the primary mode of subsistence. The aspects of belief and values, social organization and economic organization in the Batek Society in relationship to their subsistence will be discussed. The Batek society: beliefs, values and leadership The Batek believes that they are people of the forests and that the world will collapse if there are no people in the forests. The bateks affirm their attachment to the forest in highly positive terms by identifying themselves as such. This could because the forest has been their dwelling place since the primitive times and their source of food and refuge as well. Their beliefs have centered mainly into their place of subsistence, the forest. Even they get their primary sources in the forests they do not feel guilt in any way of cutting trees because according to them they only take what they need and strive to live among ecological constraints (Tuck-Po, 2005, p. 250). Furthermore, the Batek society has strong ties of familial bond and kinship. The basic unit of Batek society is the conjugal family. Each married couple is politically independent and relatively self-sufficient economically, although normally living in camps consisting of two to fifteen related families. The composition of a camp varies daily, as some families leave and new ones join, and the entire group will move to a new location about once per week. The unity of a camp is based not on political organization because leadership is informal and based on personal influence. Although there are no enduring corporate and political groups above the level of the conjugal family every batek is bound by a moral law and knows that they have a social obligation to share with every family of the group especially in terms of food (Endicott, 1988, p. 112). Leadership is situational and activity-oriented rather than ascribed. Decisions are made at the level of individuals; group decisions tend to be the best possible compromise between blissful consensuses among the members of the group. Even children have the power to object and refuse compliance. Conflict and tension can be resolved through physical withdrawal since as nomad they tend to go directions as they please among the shelter of the forest. There are also some beliefs and practices that protect individual autonomy this explain why a Bateks do as they please and does not like to be pushed on what they should be doing. For example, forcing another person to do something he does not want to could cause that person to fall sick (Tuck-Po, 2005, p. 252). Land ownership is also not an issue for the Bateks because they believe that the land was created for everyone and no one has the right to exclude anybody in enjoying the privilege. The same principle goes with all the unharnessed naturally-occurring resources as being not owned. All the wild foods, forest produce and raw materials the Bateks use are considered freely available to anyone who wants to harvest them regardless of where they are located or who found them (Endicott, 1988, p. 113-114). The Batek trade: an economy of equality According to James Woodburn (1982 as cited in Endicott, 2005, p. 79) the most important common feature of egalitarian foraging societies is that they have immediate-return economies, such as the Batek of Malaysia, which means that there is no significant delay between when people obtain food and other raw materials and when they distribute and consume them. Lack of delay prevents the accumulation of property and enduring rights over it that may become the basis of unequal power relations. Furthermore Woodburn explained that equality is achieved through direct, individual access to resources; through direst individual access to means of coercion and mobility that limit the imposition of control; through mechanism which allows goods to circulate without making people dependent upon one another. By this way people are disengaged from property and therefore from the potentiality in property for creating dependency (Endicott, 2005, p. 80). Though the Batek have been engaged mostly with hunting and gathering activities, studies have shown that they have engaged in trade with the Malays sometime ago before they were secluded within the fortress of the rich forests during the communist insurrection. Significantly the Batek trade is highly influenced by their primary mode of subsistence. Because Bateks lives mainly on hunting and gathering food as well as necessary materials that they get from the forest and available natural sources they have built an economy of trade from the necessity of these raw materials by other society such as the Malays. The Bateks have engaged in labor barter as well as commodity barter such as thatch, rattan and aloes wood in exchanged of white rice, wheat flour, cooking oil, salt, sugar, tea, tobacco, sarongs, flashlights, steal-bladed bush knives and cheap electronic devices (Endicott, 2005, p. 81). Though the Batek economy flourished it never boomed into a larger economy and no Batek became really rich out of the trade economy. The main impediment to wealth accumulation is the obligation of each Batek to share with the group especially in terms of food. All the trade and activities a Batek does must be inclined to help other Bateks that is why capitalist Batek will never flourish within the grounds of its own society because fellow Batek will never allow. Taking for example the case of a Batek who almost got rich out of being a middleman in the rattan and aloe trade, that when this young Batek was able to provide himself with simple luxuries from the small profit he gained, his fellow Bateks started getting upset and stop dealing with this Batek trader thinking that the latter is getting more from the goods thus getting rich off their labor. Bateks consider this unfair and a breach of the general obligation to help and not to exploit other Bateks (Endicott, 2005, p. 86). The Batek society is one of the many culturally enriched minorities of the world. Their subsistence plays a significant influence on their culture and their society. Although they have been confined with the old primitive ways they were able to come up with a kind of society that has emerged from their ways of living. It can be seen that subsistence plays an important role in the formation of culture. Taking the Bateks of Malaysia that even though they lived secluded amongst the barriers of the forests their dictates of living or mode of subsistence was able them to eventually adopt to a culture with beliefs, values, morals, leadership, and economic aspects. From their primitive hunting gathering ways they were able to survive and were introduce to other cultures in the form of trade. Though they lack laws in print their mode of subsistence was able to give them socially occurring laws that kept their culture over the years that adapts to changes. References: Endicott Kirk (2005) The significance of Trade in an Immediate- Return Society: The Batek Case in Wildok T & Tadesse W (Eds.), Property and Equality: Encapsulation, commercialization, discrimination (pp. 79-89) United States; Berghahn Books Endicott Kirk (1988) Property, Power and Conflict among the Batek of Malaysia in Ingold Tim Riches David and Woodburn James (Eds.) Hunters and Gatherers 2: Property, Power and Ideology (pp. 110-127), New York; Berg Publishers Haviland W., Prins H., Mcbride B. & Walrath D. (2010) Cultural Anthropology: The Human Challenge, 13th Edition. Cengage Learning, pp. 159-184 Tuck-Po L. (2005) The Road to Equality? Landscape Transformation and the Batek of Pahang, Malaysia in Wildok T & Tadesse W (Eds.), Property and Equality: Encapsulation, commercialisation, discrimination (pp. 90-114) United States; Berghahn Books Tuck-Po L. (2005) The Meanings of trees: Forest and Identity for the Batek of Pahang, Malaysia. The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, (6) 3, pp. 249-261 Read More